Tomorrow is a Long Time
by AlissonLoon
Summary: Lola Winston is the blood of two clubs, the Mayans and the SOA. Just as tangled as her lineage is her past with Jax Teller, with whom she spent years as his furious adopted sister to being his first real love. After a year in college, Lola returns for the summer with more trouble than she could ever imagine, and she'd already faced more than a lifetime's worth. (OCxJax)
1. Prologue

It was that age-old roaring of the glittering motorcycle engines that ripped Lola from her sweet, deep sleep. She woke up yawning, her breath sweet and crystallized sugar seeming to gather at the corners of her mouth as drool would. The sun kissed her skin so tenderly, just as it always had; the Mexican honey of her complexion always made gold with those warm rays. She brushed a few strands of caramel brown hair from her dark eyes and stretched her arms until the cracked. The sheets tangled around her slender, copper legs and she kicked wildly for a moment, trying to release herself from the cotton confines that made her hair stick to the back of her neck in the warm dorm room.

She slid a pair of cotton shorts up her legs and kept on the lace-trimmed camisole she had slept in. Perhaps if she looked more her age and perhaps if she were more fairly-endowed she would worry about putting on some type of brassier, but she knew there really wasn't much of a point to that as there was hardly anything to contain or keep still. She wound a black scrunchy around the thick and messy explosion of waves at the base of her neck and pushed back more stray pieces that around her heart-shaped face. She stepped out of her dorm room and into the hallway, which was quiet in its early morning tranquility, and made her way to the bathroom. Maybe a handful of years ago should would have had the mind to knock and ask if anyone was busy in there, but these days she just kicked open the door and walked in on what she happened to walk in on.

Today wasn't bad, Jax was merely peeing. She'd walked in on much worse in the past... But those were memories she preferred not to recall.

"Hey," he greeted, sending her a quick nod of his white-blonde head. He was nearly naked beside a pair of white boxer shorts that he had pulled down in order to use the toilet. The sun caressed his back so divinely it was like the colossal star itself had sewn him some silken, gilded shroud. Ink crawled across his back and forearms which held the stream of his urination steady. Lola averted her eyes when he looked up at her.

Things weren't like they were with Jax anymore. They'd passed three schools together not having looked at one other with anything besides petulant annoyance, childish rivalry, and esoteric laughter. Or, at least that's what both of them kept clear on their faces during those years. In actuality, there had been some dark-colored bond between them that ran beneath the floor and ran as slowly and heatedly as blood seeps from a bullet wound. That bond always kept them together in a way not even them could understand, but since he first met her and she first met him the bond had tied the light-featured ladykiller to the dark princess of anarchy.

Lola had been first ushered into the clubhouse on a late night in June. It was catastrophically hot—bringing the straightened hair of girls into frizzy globs and dappling the shirts of men with dark drops of sweat. Thankfully for Lola, that thick heat was something half of her blood was born to live in, so the heat never bothered her. But that night she had been pushing her quarter at a party filled with so many lusty and lascivious men even she had felt so terribly warm in the damp heat consuming the home in which the party was held. She was thirteen then and still in Nevada, cleaning up the wreckage the dragon that flew through left behind.

Forward four months and Lola was inexplicably adopted by Gemma Teller-Morrow, whose heart was still scabbing over at the loss of her six year-old son, Thomas, to a heart defect. That dark and empty space inside of her was filled with the little girl whose dark eyes had seen nightmares middle-aged women like Gemma were lucky to never even have dreamed of. She came in as Paloma Winston, the accidental daughter of Conseja Alvarez and Nicholas "Nicki" Winston. She was begotten as a result of Nicki's immediate infatuation with the off-limits Mayan angel whose older brother was heir apparent to the Mayan throne.

Paloma was born on a stagnant summer night in blood and fear. With her birth came the death of Conseja, who could not safely gain admitance to a nearby hospital with the looming threat of her livid brother and father. Born of two enemy clubs, Paloma began her life in the Mayan Club from which her late mother hailed. It was only until the Sons arrived unannounced at a Mayan house that party she was free from the heroin-hyped horror and was relocated to the Sons of Anarchy Club. Lola often wondered that if Gemma had not been so torn up inside over Thomas, would she still be pushing for the Mayans? And probably, at her age, deep in their prostitution ring…

"You're twenty-three and you still can't remember to flush a toilet?" Lola asked with a mouth full of toothpaste and a dancing blue toothbrush. Jax turned back around and kicked his foot up. The content of the porcelain basin swirled away with the startling flush.

At the single-sink mirror, Jax maneuvered around her the best he could as he tried to complete the same morning routine she did. It was a matter of time and luck with them—a matter which they faced nearly every morning. When Jax had reached the sink first her would block any possible chance of her gaining access to the mirror with his broad and hard torso; when Lola reached the sink first she would try her best to kick him away until she was done.

Jax grabbed a hold of her thick ponytail and yanked her backwards half a foot so he could reach over her shoulder and retrieve his toothbrush. "Hey!" She cried, immediately sending her elbows back into him.

"This would be easier if you would just stand against the wall," he said, taking her by the shoulders and positioning her as he thought was most effective. He moved to stand opposite of her. Only several inches separated their hips and torsos, and Lola was forever thankful for that extravagant height he had piled up over the years, or else it would be even more tense than she could have imagined.

The uncomfortable look on Jax face said it all. They could do nothing but meet one another's eyes in the position and even Lola's golden cheeks bloomed with red roses. Jax considered saying something, but then decided against it. First he internally scolded himself for putting them in this position without realizing how uncomfortable it really would be, then he scolded himself for even making the long-awaited first move on her that past July, and then he scolded himself for never being able to maintain his usual suave self around Lola.

His mind swirled with the memory of that balmy night. Whenever his mind began to swirl as such, the first thing he saw were her hazel eyes—storms of chocolate brown and forest green and flickering gold. The first thing he smelled was the dewy scent of her swanlike neck against his nose and lips, the heat of the midsummer night captured by her warm skin and released as that natural perfume she seemed to carry which smelled like sunlight and gardenias blooming beneath it. The first thing he heard was her curved and ample lips releasing his name in mellifluous giggles and private remarks. And the first thing he felt was the smoothness of her summery skin beneath his calloused hands—impeccably soft and radiant like a pearl beneath the moon.

He knew he loved her that night, and he regretted ever thinking about her in the way that he had those months before that July night. That cotton candy cloud carried the two in secret through the remainder of the month until it all combusted in flames—she was admitted to USC. Lola didn't tell Jax about her application because she thought her admittance lay on incredibly slim chances, but when she found out they wanted her, Jax wasn't happy for her… He wasn't happy at all. It'd taken them nearly four years to understand their feelings for one another and make themselves happy, and then she was leaving.

So as they brushed their teeth across from each other, one year after they first _knew_ each other and one year after she left, Jax couldnt help but stare at the black toenail polish on her dark, slender toes and she couldn't help but focus on the twittering of birds outside the window.

* * *

 **Here's my new Sons of Anarchy story... It's coming purely out of** **spontaneity, but I'm really interested in pursuing this idea! Anyways... Enjoy, and leave as much reception as your can! Tell me what you like, don't like... It's all helpful! ( :**


	2. Memories

Lola had done a smart job avoiding the Mayans since she came to live in Charming, but in returning to the home of SAMCRO after a year in Los Angeles, she felt more on-edge than ever before. Though many would care to disagree, Los Angeles was a haven. There, she wasn't half-Mayan, half-SOA MC royalty—she was just Lola Winston. She didn't have to have a pistol on her at all times, she didn't have to look behind her back at every corner to make sure no one was following her, and she certainly didn't have to live in a grimy clubhouse filled with dirty old men and half-naked crow-eaters. She shared a dorm with two girls her age who didn't know a revolver from a semi-automatic.

Then she returned, and when she drove past that salutational sign: "Welcome to Charming, the name says it all!", she slipped her drop point pocketknife into the belt loop of her denim shorts.

Her fear of her hometown didn't impede her warm return, however. Her Uncle Piney's arms were open, as were Clay's, and—before everyone else's—Gemma's. Even Jax welcomed her in one of those tense, postwar hugs between old lovers. She had been fully aware of how hard it was to live without him in that first semester of her academic year at USC, but something about the buzzing city life and constant cycling of schoolwork seemed to numb her hankering for him. She was reminded of his heat and his hardness when he embraced her after a year of not feeling him, and it was like the sun touching her skin after years of darkness. She had adapted to that less-bright universe and learned to keep herself warm. But in his arms again, she was growing weak and dependent on his light.

After the awkward encounter in the bathroom, Jax had stayed to shower and Lola had made her way outside. Even beneath the smog of Los Angeles she had kept up the habit of meeting the sunlight within moments of waking up. Living all of her life between Nevada and California, the sun was always there. And it was _always there_ for everyone, of course, but when Lola thought of herself she thought of that big, hot ball hanging over her head—frying her hair until it hurt to touch her hazelnut curls and ironing her skin until she felt stiff. But she loved it, and so every morning she had woken to she had found some way to bask beneath the sun within moments of her rise. Sometimes she'd take a walk and other times she'd just lay there—stretched out on the cement.

"Getting your mornin' dose of Vitamin D, sweetie?" Lola heard Gemma's insouciant question, her expectations too fruitful for her to even try and seem surprised. Lola opened her eyes and met Gemma's as the older woman slid onto the lid of the rusted Pontiac Lola was sitting on.

"'Course," Lola smiled in response, flashing her pearly-whites. Gemma always saw light in that great, smile on her mouth—so holy and happy despite all that it had swallowed.

"Your freckles are going to start popping up again now that you ain't trapped beneath all that pollution," she gave a small smile. Gemma didn't like Lola's attendance at the university nearly four hours south of Charming, but she was proud of that little girl making something of herself… It was something she never had the balls to do. Or the grades.

"I know, I already got them on my forehead. Look," Lola pushed back her hair and revealed the top of her head, which glittered like caramel with a few little dots of darker brown. Every woman Gemma had ever known had wanted skin like Lola—glorious, golden… the Mexican blood in her that nourished her skin bronze. Gemma liked to think Jax didn't deserve her—even being the Adonis he is. There was some radiating entity inside of Lola that was as white and honest as the Virgin Mary. "So tell me, how're things with you and Jax?"

Lola looked away at the cigarette butts on the lot of Teller-Morrow Auto Repair. She shrugged and tried to refocus the conversation with a comment about the heat, which really wasn't bothering her as much as her note made it seen. But Gemma knew this.

"Think you two'll get back together?" She asked, walking on eggshells with her full foot down on the ground—as she always did.

"No way, he hates me after last summer. And isn't he seeing some girl?"

"Ha!" Gemma scoffed. "More like crow-eater. I don't think it's too serious, he's just tired of trying to find your face in one of these crow-eaters, so he's settling."

"My face? What about Tara?"

"History, Paloma. You and I both know his mind hasn't been anyplace but you since your departure from Charming last July. I can see it in his eyes—he's missed you a lifetime, honey."

Lola scraped her hair away from her face and lay back down, her spine molding to the uneven lid of the car. A small fraction of her wanted Tara to soar back to Charming, to sweep Jax off his feet once again—but, only a small fraction. The weight of her and Jax's unspoken and splintered tryst sometimes became too heavy to bear; Lola figured she would feel better if Jax became entirely unavailable.

However, then the nine-tenths of her that resisted this proposition screamed back at her—seeing Jax with another woman would place more a weight on her heart than that being placed by the uncomfortable burden.

"I doubt it," she snorted, stretching up her arms high above her head so even the areas of her skin usually hidden in shade could taste the sun.

"You know," Gemma added. "When you first came here, I think he had a bit of a crush on you. It washed away and only came around again when you two were older… But I think he did."

Lola laughed at her words. Jax at fourteen was already a well-rounded womanizer; he had no heart for small saved girls who spoke no English. "You and I both know that ain't true, Gem."

"I don't know, hon. I remember when you first came and we were sorting out your bedroom. He offered to help paint your walls and paid for a quarter of the cost of your sheets and things."

"He'd never had a sister. I doubt it was anything but him looking out for me."

 _Gemma looked at the little girl standing beside her. She held a knit blanket tightly to her chest and studied the room with her dark doe-eyes. Gemma smoothed her hand along the dark, thick crown of head; curls that had come loose sprung out of her untidy ponytail, and her dark lips were gnawed in worry. Jax stood on the other side of her, looking down at the girl. She was only a year younger than him, but he'd sprouted like a bean stock the past two years and was nearing six feet already. She was only a shadow beside him—small and quiet as a cat._

 _"_ _We can paint your walls, Paloma. What's your favorite color?" Gemma asked her as she bent her back slightly. Even she held a considerable height over the girl—and she wasn't a tall woman._

 _The girl continued to look up at her with those big, dark eyes; she was confused and lost as ever. It didn't surprise Gemma that the Mayans hadn't taught her any English; she was too threateningly American to learn the tongue. They had to keep the Mexican half as strong as they could._

 _Jax cleared his throat as he noticed her confusion. He attempted to utilize his high school Spanish class for once. "Uh…Cuàl es tu color favorito?"_

 _Paloma met her eyes with his. "Rojo…" she answered. "Red."_

 _"_ _So she speaks some English…" Jax sighed. "Los muros… Rojo?"_

 _"_ _No," she shook her head. Then she pointed to Gemma's neck eagerly, specifically to the light blue stone in the necklace she wore. Jax's father had gotten it for her after Thomas' death. "Azul claro. Ella me salvó. El collar."_

 _Gemma reached to place her fingers over the stone around her neck. She wasn't sure what Paloma said, but whatever it was made her mouth part in some sort of motherly awe._

 _"_ _She says you saved her. She wants the walls to be light blue—like your necklace."_

 _Gemma smiled, crouching partially to run her hand down Paloma's cheek. She kissed her smooth, warm forehead and unlatched the necklace around her own neck. Once it was removed, she put it around Paloma's long, slim neck. The young girl's eyes widened in bewilderment; Gemma doubt she had ever been given such a gift, or any at all._

 _"_ _Thank you," she spoke in crackled English._

 _"_ _De nada."_

 _"I can do it, Mom. There's some paint at the garage, I think," Jax said._

"I remember when you two had spent enough time around one another to start acting like siblings. You would always fight about Cheerios, do you remember that?" Gemma asked her with a nostalgic smile.

"Ugh, yes. Jax would wolf down an entire box and leave me none. They're the only breakfast food I like—and he knew that," she rolled her eyes.

 _Gemma sat at the table drinking a cup of coffee. Jax was to her left, shoveling overflowing spoonfuls of Cheerios into his mouth. She looked up as Lola walked into the kitchen; she had her little knit blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a pair of silk shorts on. Her hair was a wild tumble of curls that had gilded over with the summer sun. At fifteen, she had grown several inches and put on some feminine curves—but she was by no means womanly yet._

 _"_ _Morning, hon," Gemma greeted her._

 _"_ _Mornin'," she grumbled. She reached for the cabinet and pulled out the box of Cheerios. When she rattled the box in her hand and heard only the jumps of a few meager pieces, she looked at the table and glared at Jax. His eyes were focusing on the cereal he was eating._

 _"_ _What are you eating, Jax?" Lola asked. Gemma chuckled beneath her breath as she heard the hot anger rumble behind Lola's fast words._

 _"_ _Breakfast."_

 _"_ _My cereal?"_

 _"_ _It's not yours."_

 _Lola marched over and looked into his near-empty bowl. A puddle of milk with several islands of Cheerios sat at the bottom of his massive bowl._

 _"_ _Are you kidding?!"_

 _"_ _They don't belong to you!"_

 _"_ _Gemma!" Lola insisted upon the elder's defense._

 _"_ _Jackson, you should have left some for Paloma."_

 _"_ _I did!" Jax defended. Lola marched over to the cabinet to retrieve the box of Cheerios and a bowl. She slammed the bowl down on the table and poured the remains of the Cheerio box into the bowl. A few pieces tumbled out, alongside some of the dust produced by the cereal._

 _"_ _Mmm! This looks so filling! Thank you for being so kind and considerate, Jax. I love big, yummy breakfasts!" Lola shouted sarcastically._

 _"_ _I'm a growing man! You're about a hundred pounds soaking wet! You really don't need to eat much. I think you'll be okay!"_

 _"_ _You're fifteen, Jax! You're not a man!"_

 _"_ _Alright, kids," Gemma sighed. "There's some more Cheerios in the storage closet. Jax, why don't you go get them—seeing you've deprived Lola of a breakfast."_

 _Jax groaned as he stood. He sent Lola a scowl as she grinned at him mockingly. He made way for the storage room._

"Those were the good old days," Gemma laughed.

"How so?"

"When you and Jax were best friends and enemies at the same time—like real siblings. Now you can barely look one another in the eye," Gemma sighed. For a moment, Lola admitted to this truth. She pursed her lips and looked back to the sun.

A door slammed as Jax emptied into the lot in a white t-shirt and jeans. Lola never understood why he refused to wear shorts, even in such blistering heat. Then again—none of SAMCRO ever wore shorts. Lola imagined it had something to do with their obsession with masculinity. Shorts somehow threatened their macho dispositions.

"Hey darlin'," Gemma greeted him. He walked over to his mother and let her plant a kiss on his cheek. "How'd you sleep?"

"A'ight," he said. Lola hated when he said that. When they were together, she'd managed to move him away from saying it by giving him a kiss every time he said 'alright.'

"What are you up to today?" Gemma asked him.

"Working in the shop for a little. Not sure."

"Okay. I'm having everyone over for dinner tonight—to commemorate Lola's final return to us," she smiled and nudged Lola's arm, though keeping her eyes on Jax. "You be there?"

Jax looked at Lola—who looked at the sun as though it were having a conversation with her more interesting than that which Jax had with them. He looked back to his mom. "Course."

"And you, Lola?" She asked the girl beside her.

"How could I miss a feast in my honor?"

"Good," Gemma nodded. "You seeing any of your old friends today? Marcy, or—what was his name… Danny?"

Jax bit the inside of his cheek and looked at the ground. No one but he, Lola, and Danny knew about what laid in that buried grave. Lola looked at Jax for a moment, then shrugged. "Marcy maybe. Or Rosa. Not sure."

"Alright," Gemma nodded.

 _Jax laid in his bed with a girl on top of him. Her shirt was bundled around her stomach and Jax worked at the zipper to her miniature shorts with his left hand. Only a small fraction of his brain processed the sound of the front door opening. It was a Monday and both Clay and Gemma were at the shop until seven. He figured it was Lola, who wouldn't bother him when his door was closed—usually. Sometimes she'd burst in for fun, but that habit had faded as her most recent, fresh love had begun: Danny. Jax was the only one in the house young enough to identify the sneaky escapades of young lovers—the sound of Lola's window opening in the dead of night, the smile she wore when Gemma asked her what she did last night, the long phone calls she had in the evening. It was an esoteric language used between those straying from innocence and lusting for experience; those with full fills of either could read, but never understand._

 _"_ _Who was that?" The girl pulled away from him with a hot breath._

 _"_ _Dunno," Jax lied. He refocused his attention on the shorts she wore and managed to slide them down her long legs._

 _He heard the television turn on downstairs and resumed. Some amount of time after she'd moved her pretty, pink mouth southwards to please him, he heard the front door open and shut again. Jax's eyes were clenched shut as the girl—whose name he couldn't recall at that moment—worked him with the expertise of a well-taught crow-eater. His eyes momentarily opened and looked at the door as he was unable to identify Lola's light footsteps. The door slammed shut. The girl did something that made him refocus again and reach for her hair with an open palm then tight fist._

 _He heard something crash and break against the tiled floor of the kitchen. Jax forgot about the girl and leant upwards on his elbows. He looked at the closed door to his bedroom._

 _"_ _What's wrong, Jax?" The girl asked. She'd probably noticed some degree of softening as Jax became distracted. "Someone probably dropped something," she offered, eager to get back to her careful ministrations._

 _In undistinguished words, he heard two voices rise in volume downstairs. He stood up and pulled up his boxers. "Jax?" He heard the girl on the bed ask. He ignored her and walked to the door of his bedroom, opening it to hear what was going on downstairs._

 _"_ _How do you think I feel—watching you ride around town on the back of his fucking motorcycle?! Going around town in his clothes?!" A young man's voice ejected._

 _"_ _He's pretty much my brother, Danny!"_

 _"_ _Yeah? Then why'd he pick you up last night after our fight like he was scooping up some sort of booty call? You don't think I see the way you look at him?! The way he looks at you?! It's pretty fucked that you call him your brother, seeing how badly you want to fuck him."_

 _"_ _I don't want to be with him! You're delusional!"_

 _"_ _I'm delusional?! At least I don't fuck my brother!"_

 _"_ _He's not my brother!"_

 _Jax heard a long and sinister laugh. "So now he's not your brother?"_

 _"_ _Fuck off, Danny," Lola said. Jax heard her light footsteps padding across the kitchen floor and into the family room. He could imagine her limber limbs collapsing onto the couch in a warm, snuggling ball of skin and blankets. Sometimes when he came home drunk she'd let him fall into her arms on the couch, braiding his hair until he fell asleep._

 _"_ _She can take care of herself, Jax," the girl on his bed urged him. It was true—she could. She hated when Jax got involved in things she could take care of, and she could probably take care of this kid. But Jax wanted to make sure the fight didn't escalate. Jax continued to ignore the girl on his bed._

 _"_ _Don't walk away from me! Why do you treat me like dirt? Why is it so hard to get to you?!" Danny shouted. "Answer me!"_

 _"_ _What do you want me to say?"_

 _"_ _That you'll love me more than you love him."_

 _Jax's brows furrowed and he heard her laugh bitterly. "I've known him since I was thirteen. He's my best friend, Danny. I can't love you more than him."_

 _A long pause halted the sound and straightened the air. Jax heard Lola's little footsteps move back into the kitchen. Then a cabinet slammed. "I'll make you love me more," he heard Danny threaten lowly._

 _"_ _Get away from me!" Jax heard Lola exclaim and the sound of flesh against flesh rang through the air. Jax wasn't sure who'd hit who, but he ran for the handgun sitting on his dresser and threw on a pair of sweatpants. Upon running down the stairs, he heard limbs hit wood and hands hit heads. He saw Danny with his hands around Lola's throat against the fridge, and Lola's knee connect to his denim-clad groin. She rubbed her neck with bloodied hands, but fell again when Danny yanked her by the ankle to the ground. He had her pinned and spoke low and harsh words beneath his tongue as Lola managed a hard punch to his jaw._

 _Danny stopped moving when he heard the cock of a gun. He looked up at Jax, whose gun's trajectory met his temple. With his eyes torn from Lola, she slipped her small wrist from his grasp and clocked him again in the jaw. Jax held his gun with constant aim as he reached for Danny by the collar of his shirt. He yanked him off of Lola and threw him away from her._

 _"_ _Of course it's you," Danny laughed as he wiped a stream of blood from his lips._

 _"_ _Get out of my house," Jax ordered._

 _"_ _Or what?"_

 _"_ _Or what do you think?!" Lola shouted. She stood and kicked him in the stomach with her bare foot. Jax pulled her back by the shoulder._

 _"_ _Fuck you both," Danny grunted as he got back on his feet. He moved toward the door as he rubbed his jaw. He slammed the screen door behind him and trotted off with heavy footsteps._

 _Lola moved toward the sink and sighed. She turned on the faucet to wash away the blood smeared across her knuckles._

 _"_ _What the fuck was that?" Jax insisted, slipping the handgun into the band of his sweatpants._

 _Lola sighed. "A mistake."_

 _"_ _Yeah I'd say so!" Jax laughed loudly. "Why on earth would you be with a guy like that?"_

 _"_ _Dunno," she shrugged. "Not anymore."_

 _Jax huffed angrily, irritated by her blasé response. He walked to the sink and dispensed soap into his hands, then took hers and scrubbed at the fresh wounds. She didn't make a sound in spite of the pain he knew the soap inflicted._

 _"_ _I won't always be there, you know—"_

 _"_ _Shut up, Jax," she rolled her eyes. He brought her hands back under the faucet and washed the soap away. When her hands were cleaned, she patted them dry on her white blouse. He tapped the bottom of her chin, gesturing for her to expose her neck. He pulled her hair back and inspected the sweet-smelling skin of her neck. Faint bruises of violet pooled, but her skin was tan enough to mask the color._

 _Jax moved for the fridge and pulled an ice pack out of the freezer. He pressed the cold plastic to her warm skin and reached for the medical box in the cabinet opposite the sink. Lola saw him retrieve medical tape from the box. "What the hell are you doing with that?"_

 _"_ _To keep the ice pack on your neck."_

 _"_ _You're not taping an ice pack to my neck, Jax!" Lola exclaimed._

 _"_ _Fine," he threw the tape back in the box and retrieved bandaids instead. "Let's at least bandage up your hands."_

 _"_ _What do you usually do when you get bloodied knuckles in fights?"_

 _"_ _Just wrap them with gauze and put some salve under it," he shrugged. She nodded as he dabbed some Neosporin on her cuts with his clumsy pointed finger. Lola looked at him for halves of seconds as he focused above her—putting all his attention in covering each splotch of torn skin with thick salve. She could feel the warm air leave his straight nose, and could hear his teeth gnaw at his bottom lip in concentration. Lola focused on his ear as he worked—not large, not small, tanned, with his white-blonde hair tucked behind it. One time he was drunk and tried to get her to pierce it, but she forced him into bed and sang until he fell asleep._

 _Lola opened her eyes and noticed Jax was still on the fourth of her ten injured knuckles. She would have complained, but the definition in his eye and purse of his lips made her want to cry instead. He really cared about her. Lola suddenly cast her long, dark arms around Jax in a bone-crushing hug. In spite of her small size, she could always muster a ferocious force in her hugs. Jax was startled at first by the show of affection, but the little space she took up in his arms was an unavoidable warmth he only touched here and there._

 _Lola smushed her button nose up against Jax's neck; she smelled his aftershave, cigarettes, and a woman's perfume. She didn't mind. That was Jax._

 _"_ _I love you, Jax," she spoke against his collarbones, tightening her arms that encased his strong neck._

 _"_ _Love you too, Lo," he spoke. Such words of affection were no oddity, though their depth rarely went beyond that between best friends. But these words were now spoken with new heat and fervor—there was something else behind the word 'love.' It was new, and it was as crisp and fresh as the rainy winds of March._

 _Lola pulled away from him in confusion, ready to release him from her confines and return her attention to her recent wounds with a sort of medical indifference. But as he chin departed from its landing on his shoulder, Jax pulled her back so her forehead knocked gently against his. And suddenly the cars occasionally mowing by outside slowed to the pace of pedestrians, and the clock's gentle second ticks were as smooth and devolved as the untimed kiss of ocean shore to sand._

 _Shortly after their noses crushed, Lola's lips landed on his. It wasn't slow by any means, nor was it paced. It was a timeless event wherein two skeletons collided into one another and a hot flash of color seemed to go off. Jax was bent at the waist, and Lola was arched at the toes; their heights were in a constant battle to meet one another on level field. Equality was found with Lola's bottom safely secured on the countertop. When Lola's hand embarrassing stuck to Jax's hair by way of salve, they both noticed and pulled away from one another._

 _"_ _Can you patch me up, please?" Lola laughed almost drunkenly, pushed to a strange intoxication by the pink of his lips and the strange, intimate discovery. It was only, however, made comfortable and casual by the alcohol that still ran through their bloodstreams from their separate but wild Friday nights. Startled, he reached back for the medical box and withdrew the bandaging. He wrapped the white cloth around both of her knuckles as she placed the slope of her cheek on his forehead, burying her nose in his hair. She'd always loved the smell of his hair and his shampoo. She'd always made fun of him for it for the scent being somewhat feminine, but it suddenly wasn't. All along it had only been amorous._

 _He knotted the final bandage and returned to her mouth, like a pilgrim meeting holy site. She looped her pointer finger around the ball of his jaw and pulled him into her._

 _"_ _I love you, Jackson," she said as she pulled away. She meant it in a new way, and he knew. She only said his full name when she was serious—whether by anger, sorrow, or now… love._

 _"_ _I love you too."_

 _"_ _Really, Jax?!" The girl from his bedroom exclaimed from the bottom of the staircase. He didn't look at her and buried his his face in the crook between her neck and shoulders. Lola was home, and this unknown entity from his bedroom was far, far away._

 _"_ _Just go," Lola urged her with some degree of sympathy. Jax felt liked a child at the hearth of something irreplaceable and forever giving. When he heard the door slam behind the girl from the bedroom he unconsciously fastened Lola's legs around his waist and lifted her from the kitchen counter._

 _"_ _You're finally mine now," Jax said against her lips breathily as he kissed her hard. Whatever arousal the girl from the bedroom had summoned in him had stuck like the wash of a canvas; Lola was the artist to paint a masterpiece on top of it._

 _"_ _I'm ours," she spoke in his ear as his lips splattered like rain against her neck. And before she knew it, she was caught in between two of the parts of her life that had been truly constant in her life since the age of thirteen: Jax's bed and Jax._


End file.
